Former Award Recipients

NIDA supports research on the biomedical and behavioral causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment of drug abuse and addiction. Learn how research is supported by reading the Introduction to Funding.

Although some international researchers receive NIDA support through a direct foreign grant, most international research is supported through a domestic grant with a foreign component, where a principal investigator from a U.S. institution works with a researcher from another country.

Distinguished International Scientist Collaboration Award (DISCA) program awardee, Dr. Hwei-Hsien Chen, spent the last 5 months working with Dr. Athina Markou at the University of California, San Diego, to develop a novel pharmaceutical treatment for inhalant abusers. Dr. Chen’s research aimed to characterize the reward-enhancing effect of toluene, a clear liquid with the smell of paint thinners, using the intracranial self-stimulation procedure in mice.

2010–2011 Humphrey Fellow Muzafar Razali received his doctoral degree from the University of Malaya in August 2010 and was appointed head of the Psychology and Counseling Department, Faculty of Education and Human Development, at Sultan Idris Education University July 1, 2010. He was also named a teaching and research fellow at the Asian Centre for Research on Drug Abuse at the Islamic Science University of Malaysia.

Munir Ahmed, M.D., a 2008–2009 NIDA Hubert H. Humphrey Drug Abuse Research Fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University, is now officer in charge for the Joint United Nations Programme for HIV/AIDS in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

INVEST/CTN Drug Abuse Research Fellow Rushit Ismajli, M.D., M.Sci., spent his fellowship with Dennis M. Donovan, Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle, examining risk behavior among adolescents in Prishtina, the capital of Kosovo. Currently, little data exist on the risk behaviors and substance use of young people in the city; therefore, Dr. Ismajli proposed a pilot data collection study in two schools to assess research tools, training materials, and research methodologies for a larger study.